Minimizing Risk in your 2015 Sales Process

MinimizingRisk in your 2015 Sales
Process

www.pipelinersales.com
Sales Process Webinar
Overview:
This webinar will cover:
How to optimize your sales process & minimize risk in 2015
How to make your sales process buyer-focused
How to more effectively manage your sales process

best-in-class companies were far more
likely than were their industry average or
laggard counterparts to, in fact, have a
formal, well communicated, and broadly
adopted sales process. And more than
half of them had specific activities, steps,
and tools to help reinforce the value as
part of that sales process.
ZS Associates "Value-Based Selling: Building a Best-in-Class
Capability for Sales Effectiveness" study.
Why is a SalesProcess Important?

High performing sales organizations are more likely to:
 Guide salesperson activity with formal sales processes
 Ensure salespeople understand the sales processes they
implement
 Provide salespeople with adequate training in sales processes
 Routinely assess the effectiveness of sales process

PollQuestion1 Results

We Already Have a SalesProcess…
“57% of the purchase decision is complete before a customer even calls a
supplier.”
“67% of the buyer’s journey is now done digitally.”
Buyer behavior is changing – has your sales process
changed with it?

Align With YourBuyer’s BuyingProcess
Your selling process should reflect how
your buyer wants to buy
Otherwise you are misaligned
You are communicating that you do not
understand them
Your are wasting valuable time, money &
resources
You are likely providing a contrast with a
vendor who does understand their process

Action Items:
4. Select a cross-section of your existing customers (small,
medium, large)
5. Interview the them, ask them whether their buying process or
habits have changed
6. Reach out to some of the late stage prospects you lost
6. Interview the them, ask them directly about how well your
selling process was aligned with their buying process
1. Select 3 or 4 of your recent successful sales
1. Review how the sales unfolded, looking particularly at how, when & who
from the customer engaged with you
1. Interview the new customers, ask them to walk you through their buying
process

PollQuestion2 Results:

What’sNext?:
Sales Leadership Marketing Leadership
Review data & begin process of defining/revalidating sales process

What are the componentsof aneffective sales process?
Effective
Sales
Process
Clearly
Defined
Stages
Buyer
Validated
Actions
Target
Advances
Value-add
Resources

Clearly Defined Stages:
A stage should denote significant progress
in a sales cycle
Make sure significant progress is defined
by the buyers journey
Or can lead to having too many stages which becomes unwieldy, hard to
manage and loses its power
Ideal number of stages is between 4 & 6 depending on the complexity of the
buyer’s journey
Marginal or ill-defined progress leads to stages being interpreted differently by
different sales people

Clearly Defined Stages:
Marginal or ill-defined progress leads to stages being interpreted differently by
different sales people
Sample 6 Step Process

Buyer ValidatedActions:
There is a big difference between interpreting &
validating
Example: Salesperson has interpreted that budget
will be made available vs. buyer stating that
budget has been made available
Insisting on Buyer-Validated Actions in your sales process is the antidote to
“Happy Ears Syndrome”

Buyer ValidatedActions:
Stage One: Qualify Points
Spoken live with Prospect (Meaning: I have actually spoken live with the prospect) 2
Email contact (Meaning: I have had direct email contact with the prospect) 2
Confirmed interest in software(Meaning: The prospect has informed me why they are interested
in our software or software like it)
2
Signed-up for Trial (Meaning: I have confirmed with the prospect that they have signed-up for a
trial or I have persuaded them to sign-up for a trial and confirmed that they have)
2
Minimum points required to complete stage 6
“What gets measured, gets managed”

Target Advances:
Advances vs. Continuations
Build Suggested Advances into the Process:
1. Prospect agrees to demo, sets a date/time
1. Prospect agrees to invite other key influencers to demo, and agrees
to confirm their attendance with you.
1. Prospect agrees to perform some tasks in software before the demo,
including setting up their own account, inviting other users & inputting
some data

Value-addedResources:
Identify Resources that are appropriate
for different stages of the sales cycle
e.g. Whitepapers, Case Studies,
Presentations, Proposal Templates

PollQuestion3 Results:

Action Items:
8. Sales & Marketing leadership now need to sit down and review their current
processes against the information gathered from the reviews
9. Define stages of sales process by identifying significant advances in the
sales cycle
8. Ensure each stage has buyer-validated actions defined (optional but
recommended: scoring)
9. Identify target advances for each stage to avoid continuation loops
10. Identify & create value-added resources to support each stage of the sales
process

ManagingYour SalesProcess:
Sales Management should be predictable
Always focusing on the same core fundamentals
The sales process enables this focus
Where should you focus – beginning of process or near the end?

PollQuestion4 Results

Assessing whether opportunity fits the ideal target
customer profile
Brainstorming different approaches to the opportunity
Looking for where the opportunity might be expanded
to include more products/services
EarlyStage is Where YouCreate Value:
Identifying possible roadblocks and pitfalls
Helping to map the key players within the
customer’s organization and what role they will play
Role-playing scenarios with the sales person to
ensure they are prepared for their next interaction

 More effective sales people who are better at identifying and qualifying
the right opportunities
 Achieve better forecast accuracy due to the pipeline being populated
with opportunities that have a better than average chance of closing
 Reduce opportunity cost by not investing resources and time in
opportunities that should not be in the pipeline
 More time to invest in coaching and mentoring sales people
EarlyStage FocusDelivers Results:

Help salesperson to draw conclusions about problems or opportunities they
should address (and the impact / cost of doing nothing)
Propose actions that will help them to achieve a positive outcome
Obtain commitment from the salesperson to take action
Following up to ensure action was taken and progress is being made
toward the desired outcome
Your SalesProcess is a Coaching Tool
Example: Review Velocity

Put reviews & coaching on the calendar
Commit to them
Be predictable
Establisha Cadence
Where you focus is where your team will focus

Your SalesProcess – A Trove of Insight
The more you look, the more you see:
You Can Identify, for example:
 Openers vs. Closers
 Hunters vs. Farmers
 What stages individual salespeople or teams typically get
stuck in
 Who is good at forecasting & who is not
 Who executes the sales process properly & who takes
shortcuts

A SalesProcess Is Dynamic…
Duration of Stages May Change
Number of Stages May Change
Weighting of Stages May Change
…Because Buyer Behavior Is Dynamic

Action Items:
13. Manage your sales process consistently – be predictable
14. Focus primarily on the early stages of the process – this is where you can
create value as a manager
15. Use your sales process as a coaching tool
16. Invest time in reviewing your sales process for insights
17. Tweak or change your sales process as needed – do let it become
stagnant, misaligned or redundant

Align with your buyer’s buying process
Create well defined stages
Identify buyer-validated actions
Define target advances
Provide value-added resources
Manage & coach using the sales process
Be consistent with pipeline reviews & coaching
Always look for additional insights from your sales process
Tweak & change as needed

To See Full Recorded Webinar with
Audio/Video:

blog.pipelinersales.com
www.pipelinersales.com/library/
partners.pipelinersales.com

Minimizing Risk in your 2015 Sales Process

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